"My wife and I have won international caps for the British Virgin Islands women's and men's football teams," says Ian Jamieson, a little boastfully. "Are we the only such couple or are there any instances of other married couples getting international caps?"

Impressive a feat as it is, Ian, you are not the only members of this exclusive club. For instance, the Portsmouth defender Hermann Hreidarsson and his wife Ragna Lóa Stefánsdóttir - also a centre-back - both own a fancy collection of Icelandic caps. "I know some footballers' wives are not very interested in football, but Ragna is different," he told the Sun. "I don't know any other footballer who married a player!" He didn't look very hard. According to reader Hrafnkell Kristjánsson, "Haraldur Ingólfsson, formerly with Akranes (and for a short spell Aberdeen as well), and his wife Jónína Víglundsdóttir both played for Iceland between 1992 and 1995."

Staying in Scandinavia, Fredrik Andersson notes that "both Hans Eskilsson and Malin Swedberg played for Sweden. She played 78 times for Sweden, while he is the less successful in the couple with just eight caps. Today they are married with two kids and she is a pundit on Swedish TV". And Zimbabwean reader Hurugu Pasvani offers Esrom Nyandoro and his wife Ruth Banda - "Nyandoro has been capped more than 30 times by the Warriors, while his wife, who has since retired from international football, has been capped by the Mighty Warriors more than 15 times."

Another couple that share a collection of caps as well as a conjugal association, are the former United States captain Claudio Reyna and his wife Danielle Egan, who has six US caps to her name. And north of the border, the Vancouver Whitecaps' Alan Douglas writes that "Steve Kindel and Sara Maglio of the Whitecaps and Canada won four and six caps respectively during their careers."

However, the highest-profile, nearest-miss example of an international footballing couple must be Ronaldo and Milene Domingues, who first got together after he spotted her on television. The Brazil striker eventually popped the question, while Milene broke the world keepy-uppy record, gave birth to baby Ronald ("My wife and I eat a lot at McDonald's so we chose Ronald," explained the toothy one) and was selected for Brazil's 2003 women's World Cup campaign. Sadly she never played, the pair divorced and she remains without an international cap to this day.

"Has a goalkeeper ever been booked or sent off for diving?" asks Allam Jeeawody.

Where better to start the search than with Arsenal's Jens Lehmann? He collected eight yellow cards in the Premier League last season, but the best of the lot came at Chelsea when he got up Didier Drogba's nose by pushing him while the referee had turned his back. Drogba dived pathetically, leapt to his feet and went for revenge with a barge. Lehmann also went down and both players were booked.

It's probably worth mentioning the infamous incident involving Chile's Roberto Rojas, a flare and some fake blood, as reported in this previous Knowledge column, but Luis Vallespín's story about the Real Madrid goalkeeper Paco Buyo comes closest to a goalkeeper booking for diving. "Real were playing Atlético Madrid in December 1988 and Atlético's Paolo Futre was sent off for punching Buyo," declares Luis. "But TV replays showed Buyo had fallen to the floor without being punched so he was suspended." Lehmann would be proud.

"I'm led to believe that Notts County used to play their home games at Trent Bridge, The Oval hosted an FA Cup final and Bramall Lane used to be a cricket ground, but are there any other cricket grounds that have hosted either league or international football matches?" enquires Derek Corney.

Notts County did indeed call Nottinghamshire CCC's Trent Bridge "home", playing there occasionally from their inception in 1867, then moving in on a full-time basis in 1883 and staying until 1910, when they switched to Meadow Lane. As for The Oval, home to Surrey CCC, it actually hosted every FA Cup final - with the exception of 1873 - between 1872 and 1892. The Oval also staged England's first home game, a 4-2 win over Scotland in 1873. Along with Bramall Lane, it is the only ground in England to have hosted football and cricket internationals.

But the England-Scotland/cricket-football connection began even earlier than that. The two teams contested the world's first-ever international match on November 30 1872, at Hamilton Crescent in Partick, home to the West of Scotland's cricket team. The game finished in a goalless draw, although Scotland won there both in 1874 (2-1) and 1876 (3-0). "A crowd of 4,000 generated gate receipts of £103," writes Jim Lappin. "The cricket club had charged £10 but received a further £10 as gate receipts exceeded £50."

Derbyshire CCC's County Ground played host to Derby County until their move to the Baseball Ground in 1895, the year in which it hosted England's 9-0 victory over Ireland in the British Home Championship, while it also staged the FA Cup final replay nine years earlier. Also in the east midlands, Northamptonshire CCC's Wantage Road ground played host to Northampton Town's matches until as recently as October 1994. The presence of the footballers meant the Northants cricketers had to play most of their home matches between May and August.

John Rhodes writes in to point out that Yorkshire CCC played regularly at the former home of Bradford Park Avenue FC, who went into liquidation in 1974. In fact, Yorkshire have only played more home matches over the years at Headingley and Bramall Lane. The last of their 306 first-class matches at Park Avenue took place in 1996. Stretching further back into the mists of time, James Kettle reveals: "My own team, Southampton, spent two Southern League seasons playing at Hampshire CCC's County Ground - between 1896 and 1898. This article suggests that small attendances were the problem, with the Saints only able to attract around 12,000 spectators for their games. The football team moved a few hundred yards down the road to the Dell."

Some equally impressive detective work has been undertaken by Andy Page. "You may be interested to know that cricket was played at Villa Park in more genteel times," he explains. Back in 1884, when an Australian XI beat an England XI by four wickets in a four-innings match that lasted one day (the top score on either side was 21), the venue was known as Aston Lower Grounds. "Although the ground was in Staffordshire, Warwickshire CCC were interested and used it for some minor matches," adds Andy. "Happily, foresight enabled them to avoid a future of slum terraces, gas holders and spaghetti junction. They settled on the much more pleasant parkland surroundings of Edgbaston."

Outside the UK, Brisbane's Gabba stadium reportedly hosted games involving Blackpool, Everton and Manchester United among others in the 1950s and 60s, as well as staging "soccer" matches during the Olympic Games in 2000. But - to invert the question for a moment - the most unlikely cricket/football combination surely belongs to Preston's Deepdale. According to Michael Haughey it "once hosted a cricket match once for Ian Botham's testimonial year. There were black sightscreens at each end and white cricket balls imported from Australia which were all hit out of the ground as there were very short boundaries".

KNOWLEDGE ARCHIVE

"Can you help with this?" asked Peyter Corner in 2003. "My dad has a medal that he found among my late grandfather's possessions after he died. The medal says Byron Cup winners 1911-12 on the back and on the front Derbyshire & Chesterfield FA. He'd love to know more about it."

"Don't your correspondents know how to use Google?" harrumphed a grumpy Alan Fisher. "A quick search for Byron Cup reveals that it is a competition for amateur teams in the Nottinghamshire/Derbyshire area. As far back as the first world war, teams like Mansfield Wesley (who later became Mansfield Town and gained entry to the Football League) were winning it. It's still in existence, although the quality of the teams seems to have declined over the years. For instance, GTS Plumbing & Heating beat Mosborough Trinity 4-3 in the first round on January 4 this year (2003). It doesn't exactly get the blood racing, does it? Unfortunately, I can't find any trace of who won it in 1912, the year when Peyter's grandfather was a winner."

"The recent England-Russia match had the Berezutsky twins playing together in defence," notes Graeme Westwood. "Have any other twins (identical or otherwise) represented their country or played for the same club? More intriguingly, have there been any cases where one twin's success has substantially over-shadowed the success of the other?"

"Who is the most-capped international footballer to have only ever played non-league football?" wonders Paul Curtis.

"Which is the club with the most prolific youth academy, in terms of players currently playing top-flight football in England?" asks Guillermo Pérez Carazo.

"When I was at school in the early 80s, I remember our teacher reading us a novel about a future World Cup (I think it was 1998) in which the finalists were Zaire and Iceland," recalls Colin Leckey. "I seem to remember Iceland winning after knobbling Zaire's Pele-like talisman, who played in bare feet. Have I completely imagined this, or does anyone else recall the book?"